


Like Ships in the Night

by GreenBryn



Category: Original Work
Genre: 2011, Angst, Hospital, Hospitalization, Loneliness, Rambling, mininanowrimo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2018-09-14 11:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9180493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenBryn/pseuds/GreenBryn
Summary: A bit of original rambling, partly to make wordcount for mininanowrimo, and partly just to get this out of my drug-addled head. FB welcome.





	

**Author/Artist:** [](http://brynspikess.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://brynspikess.livejournal.com/)**brynspikess**  
**Title:** Like Ships in the Night  
**Pairing:** none  
**Rating:** PG, I guess  
**Word Count:** 453  
**Notes:** A bit of original rambling, partly to make wordcount for mininanowrimo, and partly just to get this out of my drug-addled head. FB welcome.

~*~  
  
She's not a fan of hospitals. Never been - not because of any childhood trauma or anything like that, it's just not her thing. She doesn't care for medical dramas, and she'd prefer not to be in a hospital right now, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, her body isn't agreeing with her and is refusing her very stern insistence for it to get well already. She can hobble back and forth to the bathroom, but that's as far as her leash extends.

So she takes advantage of it. Sits on the toilet for longer than technically necessary, just to enjoy what little freedom she has. Standing guard at the door is the IV unit, taller than she is and attached through a cord to her right arm, and she gradually becomes aware that it's making little beeping noises. **ba-bum ba-bum.** Four little beeps, and it must have been beeping for a while now but she hadn't been registering the noise. **ba-bum ba-bum.** Now that she has, though, it's like an elephant in the tiny bathroom - she can't ignore it, the way the shrill **ba-bum ba-bum.** echoes against the walls.

She tries to accept the noise, tries to tune it out, only to become aware of a second set of beeps. The bathroom door is open to allow room for the IV unit, and the door to her private hotel room is cracked so that if she gets stuck out of reach of the call button, she can still scream pretty loudly and get someone to come running. Through the crack of her door, however, from somewhere down the hall, comes an answering set of beeps.

 **ba-bum ba-bum.** _ba-bum ba-bum._

A pause, and then her IV begins its plaintive call again.

 **ba-bum ba-bum.** _ba-bum ba-bum._

It sounds like birdcall, like a book she read once of the birds singing, "Here I am, where are you?" Some demented form of Marco Polo.

 **ba-bum ba-bum.** _ba-bum ba-bum._

Like star-crossed lovers, like Arturo and Catarina, calling out to find each other across the void. Risking life and limb to be with the other.

**ba-bum ba-bum.**

It's a shock to her system when the echo stops, and her IV beeps alone. Tears spring to her eyes, and she almost cries at how lonesome her IV sounds now, calling out into the darkness.

**ba-bum ba-bum.**

In a little while she'll crawl back into bed and let the nurses fiddle with the IV, touch buttons and cut of whatever alarm is going off, but in the meantime, she thinks she'll keep her IV unit company. Two lost souls, longing for what they can't have.

**ba-bum ba-bum.**

"Ba bum, ba bum," she hums back to it softly, and it's enough.  



End file.
